printing - 8 or 16 bit gif?

[tim]

When i'm sending pics to the printer, should I save as 8 or 16 bit TIFF? Does it matter much? 16 bit are a LOT larger - 20MB instead of 7MB. They're for printing at 8*10 and framing for my lounge.

[Scottes]

Almost all printers can't even print the all 8 bits, so just do 8-bit.

[Hellashot]

I print using 16bit.

[PacAce]

8 bit JPG or TIFF. Just make sure it's not GIF. :lol:

[tim]

btw - this is for printing by a photo processing lab, not a home printer. I can't see any difference with 8 bit, I was wondering if when printed to photographic paper it would make a difference. 8 bit is easier because I can email them to the printer, otherwise i'll have to walk in and give them to them myself.

[Jesper]

I print using 16bit.If you send a 16-bit file to the printer, the printer driver will convert it to 8 bits per channel. You might as well send an 8 bit file to the printer...

16 bits per channel is mainly useful when you want to edit your photo and do major adjustments to colour, contrast etc. There's no advantage in saving the final product for display on a monitor or printing in 16 bits per channel, because (almost) all possible output devices can only display 8 bit per channel images, and the number of colours in an 8 bit per channel image (2^(3x8) = 16,777,216) is more than enough for your eyes.

Here is an article called The High-Bit Advantage (http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/7627.html) which explains why editing in 16 bits is better.

[tim]

Thanks Jesper, and everyone else :)

I only just noticed I said GIF in the title instead of TIFF - my bad - now I know what you were on about pacace :p